


Hardline Sux

by orphan_account



Category: AFI
Genre: Frat House era, Humor, M/M, cheesy eighties horror movies, cute baby javeys, jason vorhees is the original straightedge guy, stupid straightedge bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:12:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3225311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davey has a list of qualifications a girl has to meet before he dates her, and Jade has an impressive collection of 80's slasher movies. Jade meets the qualifications and Davey secretly loves horror, but neither of them know it yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story after staying a week with my most hardline straightedge douche-bro friend. We spent pretty much the whole time lounging around on his bed watching 80s horror movie after 80s horror movie and making fun of each other, so this story is extremely influenced by that interaction. I don't think that friend knows this story exists. 
> 
> If he does: Jason, I'm sorry. I know how you feel about Jade.

Davey was used to hearing his friends tell him “good luck,” usually with a knowing eye roll or two. He was used to hearing that he was too picky. Or that he was going to spend the rest of his life miserable and alone if he didn’t loosen up his dating criteria. Davey, however, didn’t see one good reason why he should make any changes to what he referred to at “The Qualifications.” Why should he settle for a girl who didn’t fit his standards? Why should he try to make it work with someone who he was obviously incompatible with? 

“Because you’re being close minded,” Adam would say. 

“Because you’re limiting the options drastically,” Hunter would say.

“Because a girl like that doesn’t exist, dude!” Smith would yell. 

Davey listened to what they said, usually, but after a long and thorough consideration process he had decided that regardless of what his friends warned him of, he wasn’t going to change the criteria. He had pretty much already accepted he was destined to spend the rest of his life miserably alone, so why bother? He could be picky if he wanted to. 

Then his friends would tell him he wasn’t just being picky. He was being Hardline, even though Davey was clearly not actually hardline. Still, nobody likes a hardline kid, they’d remind him. Hardline sux. 

~*~

Everyone was slouched around in the living room, waiting for the food to arrive, stomachs grumbling. The kitchen was officially barren as far as food went, so they all went scrounging around the stupid huge dirty frat house for loose change and crumpled dollar bills in order to pitch in for a pizza. Davey was in a godawful mood, and some fuckin’ genius thought it would be a good idea to tell him to get laid. That fuckin’ genius was Jade. 

“I don’t just ‘fuck’ around, asshole. I’m Edge, remember? Yeah, just DISREGARD the last X, good plan...” Davey bitched, slouched low into the stained, moth eaten couch, finger worrying at a rip in the upholstery. 

“Obviously I know what edge means, I was just offering a bit of metaphorical advice because you’re being uptight,” Jade sighed. “Don’t be a dick.” 

“I’m just starving,” Davey whined, scooting even lower into the cushions. 

 

“Plus, even if Dave did just ‘fuck,’ those qualifications he has sort of prevent anything from happening,” Adam reminded Jade. Everyone sighed, rolling their eyes. Jade looked halfway puzzled, gaze volleying from disgruntled face to disgruntled face. 

“What qualifications?” He asked. 

Davey sighed, kneading at his empty stomach and remembering to give Jade a break. He was the new kid after all. Jade had just moved in with the rest of AFI and the other seemingly hundred or so punk drifters that inhabited the frat house they’s sort of commandeered for the summer, until the frat actually moved back in. There was an unfortunate lack of bedrooms, however, and this led to Jade currently residing on a futon on Davey’s floor, perpendicular to the foot of his bed (which was just an old mattress anyway). The sleeping arrangement made Jade feel like he was Davey’s dog, but whatever, it beat dorms and it beat home with mom. 

“Dave has these so called “Qualifications,” Adam announced, punching Davey chummily on the arm. “We think it’s to prevent him from ever actually having to date someone.” 

“How come you haven’t mentioned these?” Jade asked Davey, who shrugged and rolled his eyes like the whole thing was stupid and didn’t matter.

“Because I don’t give half a shit about relationships,” He huffed, crossing his arms. “I’m not desperate like these guys. I just want a pizza.” 

“Come on Dave, tell him the Qualifications!” Smith begged, tossing a wadded up ball of foil in Davey’s direction. It bounced of his shoulder and landed on the carpet, amongst a myriad of other trash items that had built up and no one bothered to throw away. A few minutes ago Smith decided he was too hungry to wait for the pizza, so he’d recovered a suspicious and slightly moldy something from the back of the fridge, which he’d unwrapped and eaten much to everyone’s dismay. Davey hadn’t forgotten what that foil housed only minutes prior, so wiped his shoulder uncomfortably, wincing at the potentially non vegan contents. That food might have even been alive. 

“The Qualifications are as follows,” he sighed, holding up three fingers to Jade. 

 

1\. She must be straightedge  
2\. She must be Vegan (Although I might settle for a vegetarian.)   
3\. She must like both Earth Crisis and Fear. 

Jade stared at him, cocking one eyebrow, thoughtfully tracing the ribbed pattern in his white wife beater. Adam and Smith were in stitches. For some reason this whole “Davey is outrageously picky and therefore has self handicapped any potential relationships for the rest of his life” thing never failed to make them hysterical. Davey just shrugged, tossing his devil lock from his face. Whatever. He had standards and they didn’t, big fucking deal. At least when he got into a relationship, he’d know it would work out, and they’d be stuck having to listen to Smashmouth or whatever in the car while he and his dream woman rocked out to “Firestorm,” and had some good, clean fun. 

“The last one...the last one really kills me,” Smith hiccuped, slapping his thighs.

“I know...seriously...come on Dave, NO ONE likes Earth Crisis AND Fear,” Adam guffawed. 

“I do!” Davey and Jade both answered in unison. 

“See, Jade knows where it’s at,” Davey grinned, smacking Jade upside the head in what must have been an affectionate gesture. 

“Yeah well, Dave you’re a moron. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sXe kid scream along with “More Beer” more enthusiastically than you,” Adam scoffed. 

Davey held his hands up in mock surrender. “Whatever. When I marry the love of my life, you all will be sticking your fucking foot in your mouth while we play “More Beer,” when she walks down the aisle. AND we’ll both be Xed up.” 

Smith elbowed Jade. “He’s dying alone. We all know it,” He said, but Davey didn’t have time to formulate a snippy response, because the doorbell rang. They all scrambled to answer the it, tripping over each other like a pen of ravenous dogs; Davey’s love life or lack thereof lost in the promise of pizza. 

~*~

The topic of Davey’s Qualifications didn’t come up for another couple of weeks. This was mainly because he decided to retreat from the rest of society, for a few reasons. Number one was that every time he saw Adam or Smith, which was fairly regularly seeing as they shared a goddamn house, they’d shout “More Beer!” at him. It was kind of funny at first, he’s flip them off and go about his merry business, but they’d gotten Hunter, Fritch, and whoever else would listen in on the game, and now it was just annoying as fuck. His room was his only shelter from the taunts, because no one wanted to set foot in that close, dark, potentially dangerous territory papered in Samhain posters. Except for Jade, of course, who had no choice. 

That led to Davey’s other reason for never leaving his room: Jade brought about a voracious creative streak in him, and since the guy moved in Davey literally could not stop writing songs. They’d pretty much become hermits together, leaving the room to eat two meals and day and piss. Other than that they stayed locked up, writing song after song, melody after melody,playing chess game after chess game when they needed a break. Davey didn’t think it could be like this before, didn’t know he was capable of being so productive. Or enjoy being so productive. Or enjoy another human’s constant company, but that was another story. 

One day, when Jade got a headache and Davey’s throat was sore and they’d exhausted chess, Jade proposed they pop in a movie. He fumbled through his own stack of VHS tapes, cocking his head. Davey laid on his stomach spread out across his mattress, watching Jade’s crooked teeth grind together, chew absently at a strip of dry skin on his lower lip. When Jade quit looking so concentrated and turned to him, Davey was weirdly disappointed in some way he could’t place. 

“You like horror, right?” Jade asked. 

“No, can’t say I’m a big fan...” Davey mused, running his fingers through his hair. They came back faintly oily, and he figured he better go take a shower soon. He rubbed roughly at his scalp, drying to dislodge conditioner build up, gather it under his nails. 

“You’re kidding, right?” Jade said, smiling crookedly. Davey smiled back. Jade had the most jacked up smile, so when he did it it made Davey want to return the favor, just so he wouldn’t be alone in his vulnerability. 

“No. It’s not my thing. I don’t like nightmares.” He shrugged. Jade’s jaw dropped as he gestured to the shelf on Davey’s wall which was covered in dust-gathering Nightmare Before Christmas figurines and toys. “You don’t like nightmares.” 

“That’s different, it’s a kid’s movie,” Davey argued. 

“How did you spent all those years in a band with Geoff and not like horror? Geoff is the master. He has a fuckin’ subscription to Fangoria.”

“I dunno, dude. It never came up.” 

“But you’re a Misfits fan. What Misfits fan doesn’t appreciate the fine art of classic horror?”

And Davey had nothing to say to that, so he sat with his arms crossed, grimacing. 

“You like comedy though, right?” Jade asked, selecting a VHS and heaving himself up from the rumpled sheets of his futon, tiptoeing through a mess of chess pieces like a giant traversing across an wooden battlefield. He stepped on a knight and cursed, rubbing his foot while he popped a tape into the VCR. 

“No,” Davey said, deadpan. “I prefer despairing. I don’t like to laugh.”   
Jade stared at him, smirking. 

“Of course I like comedy, you dumbshit. Who do you think I am?” Davey said, chucking a pillow across the room at Jade, who backhanded it away. 

“Then view this as a sort of comedy movie, with gore. You’ll love it, trust me. You can’t take 80’s horror seriously.” Jade said. He fast forwarded through the opening credits, watching Davey sit on the foot of the bed. Davey groaned when he figured out what it was. 

“Friday the Thirteenth? Are you fucking serious, dude? I hate slasher movies.”

“It’s not a slasher movie, Dave. Comedy, remember?” Jade grinned, tripping through the chess pieces again before collapsing next to Davey on his mattress. Davey made an unhappy noises but moved over to accommodate Jade anyway, snuggling up against him under the sweat and detergent smelling sheets. 

“I’m gonna hate it. And you get to stay up with me watching Seinfeld reruns when I can’t sleep, okay?” he grumbled. 

He continued to grumble through the first third of the movie, but when Jade offered to shut it off, Davey insisted he wanted to sit it out. By the time counselors started getting slain, he was giggling. By the end credits, he was already digging through Jade’s videos for the second one muttering, “You gypped me Jade, I wanted to see Jason slice up some stupid teenagers, not Mrs. Vorhees.”

“I’m sure, that’s it,” Jade said dryly. 

This began Davey’s steady education in old school slasher horror. Jade spent the last two years rooming with Nick 13 at Berkeley, and a good Psychobilly Kid knows his horror, so Jade underwent the same strict curriculum that he was currently bestowing upon Davey. By the end of the day they’d finished Friday I through Friday III all in time for dinner, and Davey was positively hooked. 

“This is great,” He mumbled through a mouthful of strawberry poptart. 

“Slasher movies are actually straightedge propaganda in disguise. They’re all about punishing teenagers for drinking and having sex.” 

“Just wait, dude. Jason and you have more in common than you think,” Jade smirked, munching on leftover cheese pizza. Davey was back to rummaging through the pantry in search of the few and far between vegan items he and Hunter shared. There was a lonely block of tofu in the fridge, but nothing to season it with. He sighed, realizing he was fresh out of other options. 

“Are you likening me to a murderous retarded kid?” Davey bitched, breaking the tofu into bite sized pieces with a wooden spatula in a pan. 

“He’s the original Hardline kid.” Jade said, kicking at Davey’s shin while he cooked. Davey rolled his eyes. At least it wasn’t “More Beer.” 

 

~*~

In regards to the rest of the house’s endless amusement at Davey’s Qualifications, the topic was bought to the table again the following evening. Hunter was having a few friends over, one of which he seemed to think Davey might be interested in. 

“She’s vegan,” Hunter said with an eyebrow waggle. He had just enlisted Davey and Jade, (Who were venturing from Davey’s room on a rare excursion to acquire some soda) to help vacuum the living room. What he should have said was “Help me gather the plethora of pizza boxes and beer cans that have accumulated on the carpet so I can actually see what the carpet looks like.” Davey and Jade were both cringing as they gathered the smelly cans, some of which smoking douche bags has used as ash tray some night prior. 

“But is she straightedge?” Davey asked, placing dramatic emphasis on the final word. He was washing his hands, lip curled in disgust. 

“I dunno man, but come on! She meets one requirement, why not consider it?” Hunter bitched, throwing a wadded up burrito wrapper from the living room to the kitchen, where it landed miraculously in the trash can. “Slam dunk!” he crowed. 

“This! This is why I won’t consider it,” Davey said, holding up a half empty, revoltingly fermented can of Pabst Blue Ribbon for Hunter to see, rattling the cigarette butts in it. 

“I’m not disagreeing, but...” Hunter trailed off, perhaps seeing his argument as invalid. He tried a new approach. “Hey Jade, you’re a straightedge vegetarian. Do you only date girls who are also straightedge vegetarians?” He asked. 

Jade shrugged his shoulders, dismantling the pizza box for the trash. “It would be nice, but It’s not a qualification,” he said. “I mean, when you really like someone, that stuff doesn’t really matter, right?” 

“See Dave?! Jade’s a normal guy. He thinks that stuff doesn’t matter when you really like someone,” Hunter offered. 

“I don’t think I could really like someone who drank, smoked, and ate meat. Sorry.” Davey said, batting his eyelashes. Hunter continued, unperturbed by Davey’s bluntness. 

“You really like Adam. Adam smokes and drinks,” Hunter suggested. 

“That’s stupid, Davey’s not dating Adam,” Jade chimed in. 

“Word,” Davey agreed.

“Jade. Shut up. You’re not helping my case,” Hunter complained, heaving the trash out of it’s can to go throw in the dumpster. They were all surveying the weirdly uncluttered living room. It looked strange not covered in trash, naked. 

“But seriously Dave,” Hunter said once he’d returned from the alley behind the house. “Don’t you miss sex?” 

“My hand and I get along great,” Davey said, and waggling his fingers. As Hunter walked by, Davey groped him liberally with said hand, and Hunter yelped, skin crawling. 

“You have to miss sex, dude.” Hunter whined, shuddering. 

“Okay, fine,” Davey admitted. “It sucks to not laid. But I’m edge, so anyone I’d fuck I’d have to be in a relationship or close friendship with first, and in order to be in a relationship with her, she’d have to--”

“Meet the requirements...” Jade and Hunter echoed. 

“Okay man, I get it.” Hunter sighed, heaving the vacuum out of the broom closet. “But still, won’t you at least try talking to that girl tonight? She’s really hot, and smart. And vegan.” He begged. 

“Not interested!” Davey said sweetly, turning on his heel again to retreat back to his room, where he and Jade had the second half of Last House on the Left waiting for them. 

~*~

Back in his room, Davey laid on his mattress, propped up by his pillow, eyes fixed on the screen. There was a lot of horrible torture going on, but for some reason Jade, who was laying next to him, kept on getting distracted from the movie and looking at Davey. Davey thought he was imagining it the first couple times, but after the fourth instance he got that weird feeling, he kicked Jade under the covers and told him, “take a picture.” 

“Sorry.” Jade mumbled, lazily looking back to the screen. That lasted for a few seconds, but then he was back to staring at Davey, all perplexed. 

“What?!” Davey spewed. 

“Do you really not miss sex?!” Jade asked, sounding distressed. Davey paused the movie, glaring at Jade. 

“Why do you care?” He demanded, devil lock sleep mussed and un-groomed, hanging in a big fuzzy mess in his face. 

“Just...I can’t imagine. Not missing sex.” Jade said. 

“Well I do to an extent... I mean not just sex. You know, kissing. I miss that too. But I don’t want to kiss a mouth that drinks and or smokes and or...”

“Eats meat. So you’ve mentioned. “ Jade said. Davey was at a loss of words. How was he supposed to respond to this? Why did everyone care when he clearly didn’t?

“So I’m assuming you’ve never been in love before,” Jade said testily, dropping his eyes slyly as he picked at a hangnail. Davey’s eyebrows shot up, shocked that Jade would even go there. “Sure I’ve been in love. There was Diana Perkins in highschool, remember that? I was totally in love with her.” 

“You talked to her like, twice.” 

“Yeah, so? I was also in love with Wynona Ryder in Heathers. But then there was that cigarette scene...and we know how that went,” Davey said, laughing a little. Jade stared at him, looking kind of annoyed, suggesting he didn’t approve of Davey trivializing something like love. 

“Okay, regardless of love or whatever else, you have to get bored just jacking off all the time.” 

“I dunno Jade, there’s some good porn on the internet.” Davey with a cheesy grin. Jade stared at him again, that weird, perplexed lack of comprehension.

“I guess I just assume any normal guy would get desperate enough to broaden his horizons.” Jade mused, laying down so his head was all over Davey’s pillow. Davey was very possessive of his pillow, and hated when other people put their dirty hair on it, but with Jade he was only mildly irritated. 

“I’m not a normal guy.” He said. 

“No shit.” 

“And I don’t see it as broadening my horizons, I see it as lowering my standards.” 

Jade shrugged, mulling over this for a few seconds. He chewed at his chapped lower lip again, drawing forth an almost invisible spec of blood, which he licked away. Davey tried not to be transfixed, because he was afraid Jade would get him with a clever little “take a picture!” He hated to be caught being a hypocrite. 

“I guess that’s fair,” Jade finally said, reaching into Davey’s lap to steal the remote and un-pause the movie. “I guess I just never met someone so impartial to girls,” Jade added, raking a hand through his hair. Which was on Davey’s pillow. Davey winced, and yanked the pillow out from under his head, which thumped down on the mattress. 

“Get your own pillow. I wanna finish this movie so we can watch the next Friday,” Davey complained, flicking Jade’s ear with a thumb and forefinger. “I gotta date with Camp Crystal Lake.” 

“The Final Friday?” Jade joked. You’re going to love it. The series was supposed to end here but it’s so good they kept pumping them out...” Jade told him, heaving into the sitting position to grab his own pillow, which he situated next to Davey’s. “It has Corey Feldman in it.” 

Despite Davey’s prior ignorance to the Horror genre, he practically worshiped the 80’s cult vampire movie, The Lost Boys. Corey Feldman’s supporting role as half of the Slayer Brother Duo, Edgar Frog, led Davey to believe that any movie starring Corey Feldman was instant gold. “I’m so excited,” he said honestly, eyebrows quirking up. 

“You should be.” Jade assured him, settling back down to finish Last House on the Left. Davey sighed, relieved to have something other to watch that Jade’s bleeding mouth, and something other to talk about than his apparent lack of interest in women.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I deliberately left out the ending to Sleepaway Camp in here because everyone should see it and be freaked out and disturbed. I'm hoping that after reading this story, everyone goes out and rents the Friday series and find Sleepaway Camp on Hulu. But I might be biased, if anything is impressive about this story, it's how much 80s horror info I pack into the sucker. 
> 
> So I read over the chapter and edited, and noticed that I was remarkably kind to Jade in this story. I have this awful habit of projecting all of my personal angst with my then-closeted ex girlfriend onto my concept of the usually-closeted Jade character. This leads to Jade being a perpetual annoying coward. I'm constantly trying to redeem him, and this story is one of those attempts at redemption

The next day, everyone but Jade was pissed at Davey. Apparently he’d been an asshole to the vegan girl Hunter wanted him to date. He hardly considered ignoring her aside from the initial introduction being an asshole, but whatever. Hunter and Adam both glared at him this morning over breakfast, which was the last crumbs from the Cinnamon Life box with no soy milk. 

“What did I do?” He finally asked, seeing as no one shouted “More Beer!” at him, which was a tell tale sign something was off. 

“Uh, come on Dave,” Hunter said, raising one eyebrow. Davey stared back blankly. 

“The girl!” Adam snapped, clanking his spoon against the inside of his coffee cup. “You totally snubbed her; she thought you were a prick.” He told Davey. 

“I am a prick! And what the fuck was I supposed to do, flirt with her?! I TOLD Hunter I wasn’t interested!” Davey argued. Adam and Hunter remained looking surly, bonded together at their half of the kitchen table, two pairs of icy, judgmental blue eyes. 

“Fuck you guys,” Davey said and left. 

He ran into a hung over Smith in the stairwell on the way upstairs to his room, who managed to tell him, “You sure were an asshole to that girl who liked you last night...” 

Davey threw his arms up in exasperation, feeling attacked. By the time Jade came out of the shower and into their room to change, Davey was in hardcore defense mode. 

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Jade asked, towel drying his hair, skin still flushed a healthy pink from the hot water. 

“What, are you pissed at me, too?” Davey snapped, sitting on his bed indian style with all his limbs crossed. Nothing could infiltrate if it tried, his body was so protected.

“Uh, no.” Jade said. He hung the towel on the door knob, standing in the center of the room dripping from his skinny torso, tawny hair a cowlicked, still damp mess. The waistband of his boxers was getting wet, and Davey found himself counting the droplets of water that rolled from Jade’s shoulders down to his naval, pooling there or getting caught in the fine hair of his happy trail. It was easier than looking into Jade’s eyes, which would be all big and sappy and brown and confused. Jade had a perpetual case of puppy dog eyes, and when it didn’t piss Davey off it made him stop being angry, but he didn’t want to stop being angry. He wanted to wallow in self righteousness. 

“Everyone else is.” Davey finally huffed. 

“Who?”

“Everyone,” Davey said curtly. “Your brother, Adam, Hunt.” 

Jade rifled through his belongings, which were still confined to a big duffel bag exploding all over Davey’s floor. He found a shirt and tugged it over his head. “Well that sucks, dude,” he said when he was fully clothed, plopping down onto Davey’s mattress with a slight bounce. “Wanna watch Jason V: A New Beginning? There’s no Corey but Tommy makes a reappearance...I think A New Beginning is my favorite, actually, even though a lot of people have some major beef with it. You’ll see why, when you see it,” Jade explained, scratching at some little scab on his arm. “After it’s is over, we can watch The Lost Boys, too. I kind of want to hear you quote the whole thing.” Jade said, grinning. Crooked grin, big watery brown eyes. 

Davey kind of stopped being angry. “Okay,” He agreed gruffly, crawling back under the covers as Jade started the movie.

~*~

Another four days passed before Davey decided he needed to get out of the house, much less his room before he went completely crazy. There were a number of things confusing him, and the close quarters of his habitat seemed to exacerbate these things. Davey had always been an impulsive person. He did things without thinking about why he did them. It had worked fairly well for him up until now. That was why he needed to get out, take a walk. 

There were several things that were contributing to his suspicion that he might be going crazy. As he walked lamely around Berkley with his walkman feeling out of place among all the hippies in his head to toe black, he pinpointed when this confusion began. He supposed it started around the day he and Jade watched Friday V, the day everyone else in the world seemed to think he was an asshole to that stupid vegan girl. The movie had been excellent, chock full of crazy teenagers getting hacked to bits, a hot Goth girl dancing to 80’s music, and of course, the token Mongoloid Hillbilly Mother and Son duo. Despite Davey’s previously sour mood, he’d been cracking up within the first fifteen minutes of the movie. (Which was Davey’s so-far favorite, too, even though Jason wasn’t the actual killer.)

Now, Davey was all over everyone all the time. The entire couple of weeks he and Jade had been watching movies together, they’d sat closely, legs draped over one another, arms pressed flush. It wasn’t exactly abnormal for Davey to sit on top of people; he did it to Adam and Smith, and Hunter when he let him. It hadn’t seemed weird with Jade until that day, when Davey let his head drift to his shoulder halfway into The Lost Boys. He hadn’t thought about doing it, he just did it because he wanted to. Jade hadn’t reacted at all, just sort of scooted down a little to make Davey more comfortable. The movie continued and Davey stayed there, pillowed against Jade’s body. 

Ever since then, however, Davey was obscenely aware of his physical relation to Jade. He liked being close to people, liked touching them and being touched. But with Jade it was somehow different. He actively thought about touching Jade, planned it out and worried about its consequences, even though there never were any. Every time they popped in a VHS, Davey spent the first few minutes of the movie planning when he was going to interlace his limbs with Jade’s, when he was going to lean against him, when he was going to wiggle closer and closer until the position was deemed satisfactory. 

At first, Davey didn’t dwell too much on his motives. As previously stated, he was an impulsive guy, and tried not to think about why he did the things he did. He did things because he wanted to, and that should be a good enough reason. This particular thing, however, caused him some internal struggle. Sure, he touched Jade because he wanted to. But why did he want to touch Jade? He was pretty sure he’d grown out of that phase where he looked up to Jade for being wiser and punker than he was in high school, and otherwise regarded him as an equal. This didn’t explain his craving need to be close to him. 

And it didn’t end with the touching issue. Aside from that, there was the time recently when Jade showed him Friday VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. It was certainly not the best of the series, and they put it on at two in the morning so before Jason even made it off the boat and to New York, they’d both fallen asleep in Davey’s bed with the lights on. Davey had woken up an hour or so later, aching and stiff and freezing cold, VHS static buzzing obnoxiously in the background. Jade was passed out next to him, taking up three quarters of the bed and totally using Davey’s pillow. Davey hauled himself up, grumbling as he trumped to the VCR to turn it off, followed by the lights. He collapsed next to Jade a few seconds later, heaving the comforter up to cover both of them. He didn’t even try to get his own pillow back, just let Jade sleep while he laid awake feeling awkward and ecstatic for reasons he couldn’t even begin to place. 

After Jason took Manhattan, Jade showed him another 80’s slasher, Sleepaway Camp. Davey presumed it was supposed to be stupid and campy like the rest of them, but after the final scene and the mortifying twist, he was scared shitless. He could not shake the image of Angela’s gaping mouth out of his mind. 

“I’m not sleeping,” he told Jade, arms wrapped around his torso. “I’m traumatized.” 

“Oh come on it wasn’t that bad,” Jade told him, stretching and yawning. Clearly he was ready to turn the lights out and go to bed.

“You know that whole, ‘watch Seinfeld until I no longer want to pee my pants’ thing? Totally happening tonight.” Davey bitched, lugging his Seinfeld boxed set out of the closet. Jade laughed at him, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’re scared of Sleepaway Camp, Dave.” 

“You better fucking believe it.” Davey snapped, bundling himself in the comforter like it would protect him from homicidal, gender confused eleven year olds. Jade sighed, sidling up next to him. 

“Okay, put on Seinfeld,” He told Davey. That night Jade stayed up with him until the fucking sun came up and Davey managed to banish the image of Angela’s crazy eyes and open mouth from his head enough to sleep, albeit with the lights on, music still playing. 

For some reason, this incident stood out in Davey’s mind as something important in the saga of his own confusing behavior concerning Jade, even though it didn’t directly relate to the way he wanted to touch him all the time. Similarly, a few days later when they watched the last in the Friday series, Jason Goes to Hell, Davey caught himself acting weird again. 

Jade was standing facing the VCR, babbling away to Davey about the movie. “This one is probably my second favorite...I mean the ending scene is pure gold. So after Jason Takes Manhattan, Paramount dropped the Friday franchise because it stopped making the big bucks, plus they were always ashamed of it. New Line picked it up after that, which is really exciting because New Line owns the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. This means that the possibility of a Freddy vs. Jason, which they’ve been talking about forever, totally skyrocketed,” Jade prattled, back to Davey. Davey sat on the mattress, eye-level with Jade’s ass. 

Davey really didn’t care which company owned the rights to the Friday the Thirteenth movies. He didn’t care if a Freddy vs. Jason was ever made. He enjoyed these movies because he got to watch Jason Vorhees inventively kill drinking, smoking, fucking, stupid teenagers. This made him feel less stupid about people always telling him “Hardline Sux.” Jason Vorhees is hardline, he could say. Does Jason Vorhees suck? No. You suck. 

Regardless, Davey didn’t give a fuck about the inter workings of the franchise. So as Jade talked his ear off and fiddled with the VCR, Davey found himself completely zoning out on Jade’s body. Namely his ass. He had a really nice ass, pert and feminine in the sweatpants he was wearing. Davey, like most other guys, looked at his friends in a critical comparative way in regards to himself and his own body. It wasn’t exactly unusual for Davey to notice that another guy had a nice ass or anything. However, as Davey noticed his, he said without thinking, “Hey Jade? You’re right. I miss sex.” Davey blurted. 

Jade turned around for that one, brows knit in an amused fashion. Davey’s mouth was half open, his eyes saucer wide, like he couldn’t believe he’d just said that. One minute he’d been admiring Jade’s ass, and the next he was talking about sex. He was still trying to figure out where the fuck his mind came up with that nice little association when Jade drawled, “Glad to know the prospect of a Freddy vs. Jason movie turns you on as much as it turns me on, Dave.” 

All of these instances perplexed Davey. They didn’t add up. He was worrying about physical contact, he was ogling people, he was admitting that he missed sex. He was not acting his normal, unconcerned, devil-may-care, pseudo-hardline self. That’s why he needed to get out of the house. After his little walk around the city with his headphones, however, Davey was feeling good as new. Just needed to clear his head, get some air. After all, he was sharing his house with a bunch of dudes who didn’t clean. That could make anyone a little crazy.

~*~

 

Anything Davey could have blamed on being cooped up too long with cabin fever was sort of shot to hell the next day. For a change of scenery, Davey and Jade were on the couch this time since for once no one was home. They were enjoying the rare solitude, wrapped in one of Davey’s sheets watching Return of the Living Dead Part II. Davey was slightly confused, seeing as the same two actors whose characters died in the first Return of the Living Dead came back for the second one playing different characters. One of them was Thom Mathews, who played the adult Tommy in Jason Lives: Friday VI. Seeing as he was in some indirect way, a grown up version of Corey Feldman’s character in Friday IV, Davey supposed he was okay with the confusion.

Despite supposedly clearing his head the day before, he was back to square one, worrying over how he could spend the majority of the movie touching Jade in some way. The manner in which they were currently seated featured Jade laying propped against one arm of the couch and his knees bent while Davey leaned against his knees, one arm wrapped around them. The hand that belonged to that arm was resting so high up on Jade’s thigh that it was actually somewhere near his pelvis, just below the waistband of his sweatpants. Essentially, Davey’s hand was on Jade’s hip bone, but that wasn’t where it wanted to be. 

Jade’s skin began mere centimeters above Davey’s hand, and not even Thom Mathews could distract him from his fact. Jade was chuckling at the screen, at a snarky little kid stuck in a mausoleum or something. Davey didn’t know, he wasn’t paying attention. A minute or two passed, and Davey thought about it, about letting his hand slide up an inch and spread over Jade’s lower album. Why? Because he wanted to touch Jade’s skin. Why? Because it would feel good. Skin always felt good, no matter who the person was, skin was usually warm and soft and Davey wanted to touch it, goddamnit. 

Without obsessing anymore or considering how Jade might react to his hand suddenly resting on his bare stomach, Davey just did it. He let his hand slide up, gently inching his last three fingers up above Jade’s waistband. His skin was soft and warm. Just like most skin is. Davey was feeling pleased with himself when Jade turned and looked at him, without shying away from his touch. 

“Uh, what are you doing?” Jade asked. He didn’t sound upset or anything, just confused, like he genuinely wanted to know what Davey was up to. What was he doing? Davey didn’t know. He was doing what he wanted to do. 

“...I don’t know...” he said lamely, looking at Jade and moving his hand up farther, so instead of a few tentative fingertips it was his whole hand, intention clear as it covered the entirety of Jade’s stomach under his shirt and below the ‘Committed’ tattoo. Davey’s heart was pounding in his throat, eyes locked on Jade’s huge, sappy, brown puppy dog eyes. They definitely didn’t piss him off today. Jade’s lower lip was bleeding a little, and all it took was his tongue flicking out for a split second to lick the pinprick of scarlet away, a silent ‘ok,’ for Davey to lean in and kiss him. So Davey just did it. 

Jade’s mouth was rough from being chapped but Davey didn’t care, he kept kissing him, at first chastely because he wasn’t planning on it and sort of surprised himself, but then clumsily, wetly. Davey didn’t even realize he was using his tongue until he tasted the tangy metallic flavor of blood, and that was it. Jade was kissing back desperate and hard, spreading his knees and dragging Davey down onto him, hands fumbling under Davey’s oversized Filth shirt to grope against skin. 

It felt like for-fucking-ever since Davey had kissed anyone, so as soon as they started to get into it he felt like if he pulled away, he would somehow be fucking it up. It took him awhile to get that Jade needed to breathe until he got pushed off, Jade gasping underneath him. 

“You almost suffocated me,” Jade panted, huge shit eating grin all over his flushed face. 

“Sorry,” Davey mumbled, cheeks hot, heart still hammering away. He was straddling Jade’s hips, and when he looked down to see their bodies touching so intimately he noticed he’d pushed Jade’s shirt up and the normally pale skin there was criss-crossed with tender looking scratches. From his own nails? Did he do that? Had it been so long since he’d touched someone like this that he lost control and...

“No, it’s fine,” Jade told him, shaking his head. “Feel free to continue, we should just move upstairs.” He nodded towards the bedroom. “Privacy. In case someone comes home.” 

“Oh yeah, good idea,” Davey said, reluctantly climbing off of Jade and grabbing the sheet. They trotted up the stairs, and the second they got to his room Davey locked the door, immediately collapsing on the mattress once they were safely latched inside. Jade followed close behind, and without another word they were kissing again, fiercely with hands tangled in each other’s hair. Davey couldn’t handle the way Jade kept rolling on top of him, trying to kiss him slow and soft with one hand gently holding onto his neck. No, that made Davey impatient, desperate, frantic until be was bucking underneath Jade, flipping him over so he could grind against him properly. 

Jade posed no complaints to this change of position and let Davey take control, allowing his lips to be licked apart and bitten, letting him moan and growl into his mouth. Davey had never felt another hard dick rubbing against his own. There had never really been an occasion in his life that called for it or anything, but now that he did feel it, he was fucking dying of heat stroke. Both of their shirts had to come off before he passed out or sweat to death with how motherfucking hot it had just gotten in his bedroom. His hands were all over Jade’s bare chest now, and Jade was cupping his ass, urging him to thrust his hips against his in rhythm. 

Davey didn’t know it could be this good. It had never been this good before, and his mind was positively blown with what his body was feeling. He ceased kissing Jade for a few seconds to inhale, and became suddenly aware of all that pale, freckled skin of his chest, exposed for whatever Davey wanted to do to it. Then his mouth was instantly on Jade’s sternum, licking against the salty skin, hands tight on either side of his ribcage. Jade threw his head back, cursing under his breath. Davey thought he might have heard his own name once or twice, strangled sounding. Each time it made his stomach lurch, made his dick harder. Then, a clear, “Dave,” ripped from Jade’s throat, and Davey was plunging over the precipice of a roller coaster, all of his organs jerked lower and lower and he couldn’t control it. 

Jade’s hips were rocking to meet Davey’s, their cocks rubbing against each other’s thighs. Davey was under the impression he was close himself, seeing as he hadn’t been touched in God knows how long, but something about the concentration knit in Jade’s brow told Davey Jade was just as close. He wasn’t surprised, then, when Jade flipped him over and wrestled him into the mattress, yanked his own sweat pants around his knees, and ground his bare dick against Davey until he came all over both of their naked stomachs. He did it silently, with his face screwed up in abandon and pressed tight against Davey’s jugular. 

They both laid there panting after Jade finished, Davey muttering a disconnected, “Jesus...” until Jade tucked himself back into his sweat pants, gathering the come from his stomach on tremulous fingers. Davey briefly glanced down, noting that not only was his dick still painfully hard and tenting his boxers, but Jade’s seed was smeared all over his own abdomen. Davey was half-admiring that fact with a weird sentimentality, mind till clouded by wanting to get off, when Jade swiped his come off of Davey’s heaving stomach and reached into his boxers. 

“Whoa, are you...” Davey said, startled by the fact Jade was touching his dick, coating it in his own goddamn jizz, jerking him slowly.

“Yup,” Jade answered, grinning before kissing Davey and quickening his pace, Lubricated by his own come. It made things easier, made Jade’s hand and Davey’s cock slippery and sticky and everything was too wet and hot and sensitive and Jade was fucking touching him. Davey was gritting his teeth so hard he couldn’t even believe it, because if he didn’t pour the tension somewhere else in his body he would be coming right then and there. “I can’t believe you’re touching my dick,” Davey ground out, concerned. “Aren’t you...freaked out...”

“No,” Jade answered honestly, without slowing his pace. “Are you?”

“No,” Davey answered quickly, worried Jade might stop or something.

“Then shut up,” Jade mumbled, and then he was kissing him again then, sloppy just like his hand, and Davey wasn’t sure the angle was right or if Jade had ever done this before or anything, but it didn’t matter because as Jade’s fist slid up a final time, Davey grabbed his wrist and held it there while he came violently and shaking, hissing a strangled “fuck...” as he ruined his goddamn boxers. 

Jade kept his hand under the waistband long after Davey stopped coming, hand lazily tracing against this thighs, his over sensitive and soft dick. Davey finally let Jade kiss him slow this time, soft and gentle and without the threat of teeth for once. He relaxed into it, loving the weight of Jade’s body bearing down on his. They kissed for a long time, long enough Davey felt like he should be getting bored but wasn’t. In fact he really didn’t want to stop; it was like getting reeducated on an skill he felt like he’d lost the knack for. It had been a long time since he’d kissed someone like this, experimentally, throughly, going from soft to rough and desperate to soft again. They only quit because Davey’s come was drying, itchy trails adhering the fabric of his boxers to his skin, making his pubic hair stiff and uncomfortable.

He finally got up to rinse off in the shower, and returned to a fully clothed Jade sitting on his mattress, eyes expectant. 

“Nice shower?” he asked, offering a bowl of pop corn he’d found somewhere up to Davey. “No butter on this,” he added. 

“Yeah, I feel clean now...” Davey trailed off, finding his Filth shirt and pulling it over his head. He wadded up the dubious boxers and threw them into the laundry basket next to the TV, deciding he’d deal with them later. He didn’t exactly feel like washing copious amounts of his own jizz out of flannel at the moment. 

“Brought the movie upstairs, and rewound it to were we stopped watching,” Jade mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn. “We gotta finish it because I wanna get to Hellraiser tomorrow.” 

He delivered this all very matter of factly, pressing play on the remote. Davey balked for a split second, trying to make sense of Jade’s nonchalance at whatever had just happened. Then the split second passed, and Davey sort of swallowed it, shrugging. Whatever. There was no need to talk about things, he thought as he settled down right next to Jade, their sides touching. Just like there was no need to think about why he did things. He wanted to, and that was it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus christ I was so into Friday V when I was 19. For the record, IV is actually my favorite (though V really is quite stellar :) Also, in reading over this I noticed that there was a lost of jealousy/possessive talk in this and now I hate that shit. Just fyi they're young stupid children in this and use words like retarded, but I am not and don't. There's my disclaimer for my 19 year old sack of shit self.

They continued this pattern for the better part of two weeks: watching horror movies, playing chess, writing songs, and in between that, hooking up without talking about it. Davey was concerned after the first instance that it would be a one time thing, but the following evening he was proved wrong. Seeing as Davey was entirely caught up on the Friday series, Jade’s next chapter to cover on the lesson plan was Nightmare on Elm Street. He started the first one around eleven thirty, and an hour later Davey made him turn it off. 

“Why didn’t you warn me?! This is terrifying,” He complained, turning on all the lights so if someone dragged a bloody body bag through the room, he could see it. Jade shielded his eyes, cringing in the sudden bright. 

“Sorry, I keep forgetting this kind of shit scares you...” He said apologetically, even though he was kind of amused. 

“Not being able to sleep in fear of violent death? Child murder? Burn victims? Dream torture? Great way to help my insomnia, Jade.” He bitched. Jade stretched out next to him, propping his head up and raising his eyebrows.

“You gotta watch the series though, it’s excellent. Well, save for the second one..but you can’t fully appreciate Jason without Freddy.” Jade argued, but Davey was shaking his head. 

“Yeah dude, I’ll watch them but not when it’s fucking dark outside. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. If it’s sunny.” He said testily, drawing the covers tighter around him. When Davey was shaken up, angry, or insecure about something, he tried to create a cocoon out of whatever he had to work with, whether it be blankets or his own arms. It made him feel protected. 

“Okay, fine Dave. Jeez, you’re the worst Pseudo Goth Kid ever.” Jade sighed, heaving himself off of Davey’s mattress and crawling on all fours over to his own futon, but Davey grabbed his ankle. 

“No, you asshole,” Davey said, voice tight and thin. “You don’t get to leave me.” 

“Please don’t make me watch Seinfeld...” Jade begged, regarding an upside down Davey from between his own arms. Davey rolled his eyes. 

“I won’t force you to sit through anymore Seinfeld, just lay with me so I can grab you when I get pulled into the mattress like fuckin’ Johnny Depp.” Davey asked. His heart was beating fast again for some reason, and his mouth went dry, fingers sweating in their grip on Jade’s skin. He swallowed, feeling like it clicked obscenely loud in his throat. Jade pretended to be exasperated, but Davey could see him goddamn beaming as he crawled back to the mattress, thudding down next to Davey. 

“God you’re a huge pussy,” was the last thing he said before he dragged Davey in to kiss him. 

And that was the end of Davey questioning how this thing was going to play out. After the Nightmare on Elm Street incident, Jade sort of abandoned his futon, and started sleeping permanently next to Davey on his stupid twin sized mattress. They were squished to say the least, but after kissing voraciously and jacking each other off each night, limbs were so intertwined that space really stopped being an issue. Davey more often than not fell asleep with his arm draped heavily across Jade’s narrow body, palm sometimes splayed against his stomach or chest, tracing lazy patterns there. It was natural to touch Jade like this, because he knew from experience that when their bodies weren’t connected somehow he would spend too much time and effort obsessing over how he could change that. It was just easier this way. 

Things continued fairly uneventfully on in this fashion until the weekend, when one of their house mates decided to throw a party. It started out as one of those small, intimate things, but inevitably one person told a friend, who brought another couple of friends, who brought their whole dorm plus their girlfriend and their girlfriend’s dorm, and without any warning the house had become a mess of hundreds of drunk people. 

Everyone was congregated around the living room, half-listening half-dancing to some unidentifiable music rattling out of the shitty speakers, Davey and Jade included. Davey was sitting on the broken recliner, trying to hear Geoff’s voice over the godawful music. Geoff was thrilled that Jade had somehow succeeded in getting Davey into horror movies, and now wanted to hear all the sordid details. 

“So who do you like better: Jason Vorhees or Freddy Kreuger?” Geoff yelled, leaning into Davey’s ear. 

“Is that even a serious question?!” Davey barked, laughing. “Obviously Jason. He’s the original Hardline guy!” 

“Awww come on Dave, Jason sucks! Hell, Hardline sux. Don’t be a hardline asshole, Dave.” Geoff chuckled, ruffling Davey’s devil lock with a heavy palm. Adam, who was hanging out nearby managed to hear Davey getting called hardline and chimed in with a hearty, “More Beer!” while holding up his Budweiser gleefully. Davey rolled his eyes. 

“I’m not actually hardline, it’s just a joke,” Davey told Geoff, cringing as he realized that Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf had been playing this whole time and he only now realized it because the sound quality was so poor. 

“Hardline or not, Freddy is obviously the superior slasher,” Geoff stated.

“Get out of here,” Davey told him, waving his hand dismissively. “Freddy is a goon. And plus, the whole series is completely brought down by the utter piece of shit that’s Freddy’s Revenge...” 

“No man, Freddy is clever! He’s funny! He actually talks, ma, Jason is retarded.” 

“Who cares, he’s efficient.” 

“He’s retarded.” 

“Your argument is invalid. Freddy’s Revenge.” Davey put his foot down. After all, he didn’t think he’d ever suffered through a movie worse than the second in the Nightmare series. Even the hilarious suppressed homosexuality theme hadn’t saved it from being unbearably horrible.

“Okay, okay Freddy’s Revenge is admittedly pretty bad, but Dream Warriors makes up for it. Heather Langenkamp coming back to play Nancy...damn. She was hot. I’d take her over the Nightmare girls any day...” Geoff was going on, but Davey got distracted halfway into his explanation, and his entire focus had been averted. He was staring at Jade, who was sitting on the couch between a few guys Davey didn’t recognize. 

That wasn’t the troublesome part, however. The issue was this girl, some skinny average looking brunette number who was seated on Jade’s godforsaken lap of all places. Davey watched intently, his chest tightening as she leaned down and whispered something in Jade’s ear and Jade laughed. A genuine laugh, Davey could tell because he spent almost every waking second of his life in Jade’s company and knew what it looked like when the guy was actually laughing. 

“Earth to Dave,” Geoff said, snapping his fingers in front of Davey’s face. 

“Whose that girl?” Davey asked, his words clipped and tight sounding. 

“Which one?”

“ The one on Jade’s lap,” Davey elaborated, trying not to point with his middle finger in order to demonstrate to Geoff exactly which bitch he meant. 

Geoff squinted, peering at her. “No idea, I’ve never seen her before. Does Jade have a girlfriend?” He asked. 

The thing in Davey’s chest clenched a little harder, making it kind of hard to breath. 

“No, he doesn’t.” He mumbled. 

“Do you like her or something? She’s got a beer, so don’t bother...” Geoff told him, but Davey wasn’t listening. He was back to burning holes in Jade, stupid Jade and Stupid Average girl. She had a mole on her arm. She was wearing a turquoise tank top that kept on revealing the straps to her black bra. She had big teeth, and laughed a lot, and was all over Jade with obvious interest and intent. What made Davey bristle even more than this fact was that Jade was responding, smiling at her jokes and talking to her with avid gesticulation. Not to mention he hadn’t kicked her off his goddamn lap. Some indication.

Was she straightedge? Clearly not. Was she a Vegetarian? Davey wondered, but he knew it didn’t matter because Jade didn’t care about stuff like that when he really liked someone. Davey’s mind was racing, skirting through an obstacle course of these things that had happened over the last two weeks that he thought meant...he didn’t even know what he thought they meant. It wasn’t like he was dating Jade, or like they were boyfriends or anything. Davey supposed that he just thought that whatever they were doing meant more than a hookup, more than both of them being friends and mutually horny. 

He continued to watch Jade, wondering about all these stupid little things and getting progressively more and more pissed. What did it mean that night Davey couldn’t sleep because he had too much caffeine, and Jade gave him a backrup without asking, kissing the nape of his neck every few seconds in the dark? What the fuck did that mean? What did it mean when Smith and Hunter started giving Davey shit for his Qualifications again, and Jade told them to lay off while winking at Davey across the table? What did it mean when it mean when Jade would reach into Davey’s lap and hold his hand casually while they watched movies, rubbing his thumb against Davey’s palm? Why would Jade do all that confusing shit if it didn’t mean something to him?

Finally, Davey saw Jade politely tell the girl to get up. Davey followed him up the stairs without thinking, catching up to him just as he was letting himself into the bathroom. Davey barged in without asking, suddenly standing there in the cramped, sort of dirty bathroom with Jade, who was looking confused and a little concerned. 

“Hey,” he said awkwardly, rubbing at his neck and looking a bit worried because Davey was clearly fuming. “Do you want something? Because I have to piss.” 

“Whose that girl? Are you going to hook up with her? Because she obviously wants to,” Davey said all in a rush. His voice was quaking with how angry and insecure he was feeling, the gelled chunks of his devil lock trembling with fury. 

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Jade asked, sounding attacked. “I just wanted to use the goddamn bathroom and you follow me in here and start yelling about some girl...”

“I’m not fucking yelling, dude!” Davey yelled. 

Jade stared at him, lip curled. “What the fuck is your problem?” He said curtly, crossing his arms. Davey’s chest was heaving, and he really wanted to just push Jade into the bathtub or something, trip him. Wipe that self righteous, defensive bullshit off his face. Instead he sighed, trying a different approach. “That girl on your lap,” he offered, and Jade rolled his eyes dramatically, like Davey was just so out of line or something. 

“Barbie? You’re pissed about her? She’s just some drunk girl whose all over everyone...” Jade started, but Davey blew up and cut him off. 

“Her name’s Barbie?! Her fucking parents named her Barbie? You’re hooking up with a girl named Barbie, and she’s DRUNK?! Clearly she’s not edge, and do you even know if she eats meat?” Davey was all but screaming. Jade looked so shocked and taken aback that Davey almost apologized. After all, he was halfway aware that he was being completely ridiculous, and all of his anger was spouting from his own insecurities with where he stood with Jade, and not exactly what Jade was doing or not doing with this Barbie girl. Still, knowing that wasn’t going to stop him from making a scene. 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Dave?! First of all, those are YOUR stupid qualifications, not mine, so don’t fucking impose your dumb standards on me. Second off, I wasn’t even close to hooking up with her, you asshole! We were just talking, so I don’t know where you get off, barging in on me while I’m trying to take a piss and starting shit with me.” Jade’s voice was uncharacteristically fierce, and Davey didn’t think he had ever seen him this genuinely angry. And rightfully so. 

Davey wished that he hadn’t come in here so spitfire and offensive...after all, they had just been talking. A better method of explaining to Jade that he didn’t want him letting girls sit on his lap and whisper things to him while he was fooling around with Davey behind closed doors would have been a nice “please” and “thank you, I’m insecure.” But that wasn’t how Davey worked. He was impulsive. He didn’t think about things until after the fact. 

“So you weren’t going to hook up with her?” Davey asked lamely. 

“God, no.” Jade groaned, rubbing his temples like Davey had given him a headache. Davey tried to make sense of his own overreaction. He was pissed at Jade for talking to a girl. He was pissed at the girl for existing. He was pissed at himself for caring about any of that, because obviously that indicated that he regarded this thing with Jade as somewhat exclusive even though they never talked about it like that. It was only then, when he put a little effort into some rare, non-creative introspection, that he realized with some nausea that Jade Puget fit his Qualifications. He hadn’t even noticed before now, because it didn’t seem to matter for some reason. 

Because he really liked Jade. And that was why he was being such a royal dickwad.

And now that he thought about it, of course he really liked Jade. Davey was straightedge, and wouldn’t have touched him sexually in any way if he didn’t care about him on some deep, moral level. That was why he had his requirements, why people had to be worthy and qualified. And Jade was. 

“Would you mind? I still have to piss,” Jade snapped, but his voice was relatively more gentle, like he understood to some degree that Davey was acting this way because of his own issues, and not Jade’s. 

“Yeah. Sorry,” Davey muttered to the floor, ducking out of the bathroom shamefully, catching sight of his own red-faced reflection in the toothpaste flecked mirror over the sink. He slunk down the stairs like a whipped dog, tail between his legs. He was a motherfucking idiot, he decided. 

~*~

Davey discovered that Jade retired to bed early that night, before everyone left the house. The party had dwindled considerably by the time Davey returned to his room, only to find Jade sleeping, or pretending to sleep, on his futon. It made Davey’s chest pang to see him there seeing as he’d slept in Davey’s bed for the last two weeks. Slept in Davey’s bed, under Davey’s arm. And here he was, all spread out on that futon in his own sheets, head buried in his own stupid pillow. 

As Davey picked his way across the floor, he kicked Jade’s shin deliberately to see if he was awake. “What?” He answered, voice clear and ungroggy. 

“Why are you sleeping there?” Davey whispered. 

“I thought you were pissed at me,” Jade answered, rolling over onto his back and squinting at Davey’s shadow. 

“Well I’m not anymore,” Davey said honestly, sitting down on his own mattress and patting the vacancy next to him. There was a silent begging quality to his motions, but he doubted Jade could see in the dark. Jade sighed, crawling up into the bed and bringing his sheet with him. He curled up close to Davey, but not touching. 

“I can’t sleep,” he mumbled. 

“I can put on a movie,” Davey offered, shrugging. “Friday V?” 

“Ok. Fine,” Jade said, rubbing his eyes with his fists and stretching. Davey put the tape in, and it started somewhere in the middle from lack of proper rewinding. They laid in silence side by side, mechanically watching the scene where Reggie the Reckless goes to his brother’s van to meet his girlfriend. Davey noticed for the first time that the actor who played his brother was one of the punk kids in Return of the Living Dead. He wanted to mention it to Jade, who obviously already knew, but refrained. 

The silence passed for another few, aching minutes before Davey had to talk, turning to Jade’s face, which was tired looking and illuminated by the flickering of the screen. “I was being stupid,” Davey blurted, letting his words hang in the dark between them, heavy and loaded. 

“Yeah. You were,” Jade agreed, but his voice was soft. He rolled onto his side to face Davey, a concerned line through his forehead. Davey wanted to smooth it with his thumb. “You know,” Jade added, almost smiling, “If you wanted to tell me that this thing was just between us, or that you wanted me to yourself, you could have just told me. You didn’t have to get mad.” He said bluntly. Reggie’s brother was in the outhouse, singing to his girlfriend. Davey thought this scene was comedic genius but he didn’t laugh this time, just stared at his hands as he wrung them together, the chipped polish and ragged cuticles. 

“Okay. I’m sorry,” He said without looking up. 

“Is that what you meant when you were being an asshole earlier?” Jade asked. 

Davey just sighed, nodding. “Pretty much.” He felt like a stupid little kid messing up things with his first girlfriend in high school. It had been nearly that long since he had to deal with a relationship, since he had to place nice with others. He supposed that meant he was doing okay, and Jade owed him some leeway. Davey was trying, he really was. 

“You don’t want to hook up with anyone else, do you?” Davey asked, trying and failing to make his voice sound gruff. HIs arms were crossed defensively across his chest. Jade’s hand had reached across the divide between them without his consent and was trying to pry Davey apart from his protective position, fingers inching between his forearm and his chest, trying to get him to relax. Davey relented, letting Jade touch his sternum, his stomach, up to rub his shoulder and eventually come to settle on his neck, thumb pressed decidedly into the pulse. Davey sighed. 

“No, just you.” Jade said plainly, eyes locking in on Davey’s. Davey could actually feel the relief washing over him like warm water, absolving his nerves and insecurities and bravado. He leaned in and they were kissing, and Davey wondered briefly how he didn’t understand before that this thing with Jade was serious. Jade fucking liked Fear and Earth Crisis, come on. Davey was so fucking stupid. 

They were kissing hard now, hands raking desperately under shirts and boxers to rough up bare skin. Davey was moving steadily lower, preparing himself mentally to pull Jade’s pants off, spread his thighs, and actually blow him for the first time when Jade stopped him. “Dave...” He said gently, a palm flat on either side of Davey’s face, holding him there above him to regard his expression. 

“What? Do you not want me to?” Davey asked. He couldn’t imagine why not.   
“No, I really do,” Jade said, smiling, so Davey tried to return to his prior position. 

“Good, because I’m going to...” Davey was almost drooling, heart pounding with nerves and need and he was so goddamn hard. And here Jade was, still holding him in place, preventing his mouth from getting to where it needed to be. All the while, A New Beginning played in the background, Jason’s victims letting out the occasional scream. 

“I just need to ask you something, before we start doing that,” Jade said quietly, awkwardly, and Davey could detect a note of hesitation in his voice. Davey would be worried if his dick wasn’t so hard, and he wasn’t so distracted over how soft and plush Jade’s goddamn lips were. Now that he was planning on using his own mouth, the reality of Jade’s and all its potential was murdering him. 

“Yeah, what?” He asked quickly. 

“Um...I...” Jade struggled with it, eating his words. Davey raised an eyebrow, urging him to go on. “I need to know if you’re settling for me because I’m a vegetarian.” Jade said in a rush, blending the words together but voice otherwise deadpan. He was serious. 

Davey stared at him, face splitting into a huge smile, crinkles exploding from the corners of his eyes. 

“Dude, don’t laugh at me,” Jade complained, but he was smiling too, cheeks flushed. He slid his thumb across Davey’s damp lips, toying with the ring. 

“I’m not settling for you,” Davey told him. “Shit like that doesn’t even matter when you really like someone,” he said triumphantly, spewing Jade’s own words right back at him, nipping at the pad of Jade’s thumb. Jade laughed, sounding relieved. 

“Good,” Jade sighed. “You can, uh, resume whatever you were planning on doing to me a minute ago.” He said clumsily. Davey kissed him, fumbling as he helped Jade out of his sweat pants. His fingers grazed against his hard dick, the skin of the head wet and obscenely hot. 

“You know, I’m not as much of a hardline asshole as everyone thinks I am...” Davey said in between kissing down Jade’s stomach, tongue flicking out between the two “m’s” in his tattoo on the left side, then the two “t’s” on the right. Jade squirmed underneath him. 

“You better not be,” he sighed, “Because as much as I love Jason Vorhees...hardline sux, Dave.” He said, but Davey shut him up, the only coherent sentences being that of Friday V: A New Beginning.


End file.
